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Baby Shower Recap Part 1

Finally! My Baby Shower Recap: Part 1! As I've said before, words can't express how happy I am with my Baby Shower. Everything went so well and so many people have told me what a great time they had on Saturday. It was such a fantastic day! I owe it all to our parents and my sister who did a lot of work to plan for the day.

I arrived to Tavern 18 shortly after 11:00am on Saturday. I wanted to be there early to settle in before everyone arrived. Our moms and my sister were already busy bees setting up for the party!

Each place setting had its own packet of games to play: from a baby-word scramble, to a match the celebrity with their baby name, to a guess the nursery rhyme game. Whoever finished these individual games first, won a prize. Also: Each guest was given a safety pin when they arrived. If they said the word "Baby" throughout the shower, any guest could steal their safety pin. The goal being: to collect as many safety pins as possible!!

Decor included this lovely banner:

And a clothesline of homemade-burp-cloths, onesies and baby clothes!

Chris, our dads, and some of their friends hung out at the restaurant bar in the other room during the event. I was glad that he was there to pop in from time to time for pictures and cake! I also got to wear my very own "Mom to be" pin!

People were punctual and started arriving in droves 15 minutes early!!

Here are all my lovely friends who were able to make it out for the day! Many close-by in New York, some from New Jersey, Pennsylvania and even Washington D.C. (That's you Cassie!) (And Dana! How did I not get a picture with you?!)

For lunch we had a choice between an omelette, eggs benedict, chicken caesar salad, pan seared salmon and penne chicken.

The Wait staff at Tavern 18 was incredible and very on top of things.
I know I'm married blah blah blah...but I maaaayyyy have had a crush on
our waiter, Jason. (Just for the day though) I mean, he made SURE that my glass of sparkling
cider was always full throughout the whole day, and brought me TWO decaf cappuccinos when we had cake!! I kid...I kid...

I still love you Chris!

One thing we did very differently for this shower was I didn't open any gifts. We asked guests not to wrap their gifts in order to keep this a "Display Only" shower. Every gift was labeled with who bought it, and guests could go and look at all the gifts at any point throughout the shower. This saved time by not opening gifts, saved on all the trash we'd accumulate from the wrappings, and saved me from having to bend over or put anything big on my lap that really wouldn't fit that well. All in all, I loved it, and it was so much fun to look through everything again once we got home.

In leiu of cards, guests were asked to bring a children's book, and to write their message inside of it. I now have a fabulous start to my children's book collection!

Instead of a traditional guest book, my mom put out different autumnal colored squares of
fabric for guests to sign. These will then be sewn together and
quilted for the baby by my mom! We still have a lot of empty squares which I will have people who couldn't be at the shower sign when they come visit the baby.

And that elephant quilt hanging above it? My mom also made that for the baby! (Can we all agree that my mom should open an ETSY store?! Back me up here people!)

Comments

Well...and I blush...I'm so happy you have a picture of Jason! He treated all of us, and especially you, like queens! I need to have some of those quilt squares for all the PA people to sign who couldn't make it. You have a good start to some great children's classics. Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom is from us (I forgot to tell you that) but I want to wait until Little Italy is here to write a message. I love looking at the joy on everyone's faces just being together. It was so nice seeing everyone. And now a shout out to Jess Beers if I may-thank you for your kind words yesterday. You made me smile! :-)

Wow so many neat ideas! I have never heard of doing the 'display-only' for gifts but I love that. I will have to remember it. The food sounds like it was delicious, too. Also-- Laura's mom: your quilt is beautiful! An etsy store would be awesome :)

Yes, I have to say - the "display-only" was a hit - you just have to make sure you have lots of other things planned to fill in that time! Thanks for the vote on my mom opening an etsy store - I'll get her to one day!

Yes, I have to say the display only was a hit....we may have had a few people who were "shocked" by it at first "What?! she's not going to open gifts?!?!" But all in all...I think people embraced it and realized that more fun could be had mingling and playing games. It def. was a wonderful, happy time!

Good morning Laura, thanks for stopping by and leaving me a message. I look forward to reading your birth plan and I think that great that you guys are waiting to be surprised!!! I think that is so nice :)

I LOVE your baby shower! Where do I even start. I love your mom to be pin, the clothes line of onesies and the homemade burp-cloths is such a great idea. I really like the burp-cloth with the burger print on it! I love the idea of displaying your gifts. It's the first time I seen that and I think its another great idea. I think my favorite is the quilt your mother made. She is one talented lady :)

Yea...there are some people who just won't see it any other way: "You open gifts at a shower, end of story" I enjoyed it at my bridal shower and that was fine - but it just didn't interest me this time around with my belly and everything. Luckily, though there were a few grumbles about it at first, people seemed to be fine with it on the day of. I made sure to look at the gifts and go up to a few people and thank them personally while I was there "Ohhh I saw you got me the _____ I'm so excited to have that!"

Looks like an amazing shower! My cousin is doing the book thing for mine as well, since my mom teaches preschool I'm sure she has already started hoarding books as well. We did a similar quilt for the guest book for our wedding, I just need to find a place in our house to put it on display!

I love the quilt idea!!!!! Also, the books instead of cards =brilliant. So i have actually been to Tavern 18 twice. My sister in law lives in Bellerose and we had my nephews communion there and we celebrated Father's Day there. The food is so yummy.

That's f unny - I think we are looking more and more alike these days, so I see it now. But sometimes we get people who think we look exactly alike and other times we get people who say they would never in a million years think we are sisters. Maybe it just depends on how we look day to day, but we've always gotten conflicting opinions on that. Yay one more vote for the etsy shop!

I don't blame you for having a crush on that guy! Lol. But, everything looks so nicely done. I really really like the idea of bringing gifts unwrapped and having it on display. I've seen that done at bridal showers and want to do that for myself but have a feeling someone will tell me that's a bad idea.

Haha thank you...isn't he adorable?! Someone probably will tell you it's a bad idea. We had a few grumbles over it ourselves....but you know what? Who friggin' cares - it's your shower! And when all was said and done...we had quite a few people tell us that they really liked the idea of not having to sit through gift unwrapping.

I kinda love the display only shower, I always felt so awkward opening the gifts in front of everyone and I'm sure all the guests appreciated not having to wrap a present. Looks like a wonderful shower!

Wow, what an awesome shower, Laura! Your mom should definitely open an Etsy shop, and I love, love, love the idea of having everyone bring a children's book and sign quilt squares. More ideas to store away for the future!

Your shower looks like it came off great!! I also love the display only idea with the gifts - that way you can spend the shower talking with everyone!! Love it. Also, your Mom should totally open an Etsy shop!! The elephant quilt is gorgeous, and I can't wait to see how the other quilt turns out!! She's got talent! :)

I am super behind on blogs, so get ready for lots of comments, haha! Your shower looks great! And yes, I agree, your Mom should open an Etsy shop! She is so creative and talented. And I love the book idea. I did that for my friends online shower! And the no gift wrap idea is genius! I have never heard of that before, but I definitely like it!